lance, after I told him we'd take his things to the _Times_
building.

By this time, between the shot and the siren, quite a crowd had
gathered, and everybody was having a nice little recrimination party.
The labor foreman was chewing the cop out. The warehouse
superintendent was chewing him out. And somebody from the general
superintendent's office was chewing out everybody indiscriminately,
and at the same time mentioning to me that Mr. Fieschi, the
superintendent, would be very much pleased if the _Times_ didn't
mention the incident at all. I told him that was editorial policy,
and to talk to Dad about it. Nobody had any idea how the thing had
gotten in, but that wasn't much of a mystery. The Bottom Level is full
of things like that; they can stay active all the time because the
temperature is constant. I supposed that eventually they'd pick the
dumbest day laborer in the place and make him the patsy.

Tom stood watching the ambulance whisk Murell off, dithering in
indecision. The poisoning of Murell seemed like an unexpected blow to
him. That fitted what I'd begun to think. Finally, he motioned the
laborer to pick up the lifter, and we started off toward where he had
parked his jeep, outside the spaceport area.

Bish walked along with us, drawing his pistol and replacing the fired
round in the magazine. I noticed that it was a 10-mm Colt-Argentine
Federation Service, commercial type. There aren't many of those on
Fenris. A lot of 10-mm's, but mostly South African Sterbergs or
Vickers-Bothas, or Mars-Consolidated Police Specials. Mine, which I
wasn't carrying at the moment, was a Sterberg 7.7-mm Olympic Match.

"You know," he said, sliding the gun back under his coat, "I would be
just as well pleased as Mr. Fieschi if this didn't get any publicity.
If you do publish anything about it, I wish you'd minimize my own part
in it. As you have noticed, I have some slight proficiency with lethal
hardware. This I would prefer not to advertise. I can usually avoid
trouble, but when I can't, I would like to retain the advantage of
surprise."

We all got into the jeep. Tom, not too graciously, offered to drop
Bish wherever he was going. Bish said he was going to the _Times_, so
Tom lifted the jeep and cut in the horizontal drive. We got into a
busy one-way aisle, crowded with lorries hauling food-stuffs to the
refrigeration area. He followed that for a short distance, and then
turned off into a dimly lighted, disused area.